What the world needs now is a strong shared narrative that transcends politics, a strong shared narrative that transcends “us verses them,” and guess what? That very thing is in the skunkworks.

I can’t tell you exactly what it is, for that would jinx the whole mission, but it’s coming our way soon, perhaps by the end of January. Stay tuned to these pages …

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, some days you step in it and some days you don’t. Yes, it’s the little things that smooths people’s roads out the most. Yesterday a fellow hailed me and shouted, “Hey, I been looking for you, ‘cuz I got something for you!” And he gave me a cigar. I smoked that cigar, a nice Montecristo Torpedo, and communed for a full 15 minutes with Ernest Hemingway. Then I sat down to write the great American novel but it wouldn’t come.

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Well, that act of kindness provoked me to send a Backwoods cigar, along with a tin of opihi to a friend of mine in the Hawaiian Islands to whom I have owed a favor for 36 years. He wrote back that he was so moved by my Backwoods cigar and tin of opihi, that he sent off a Cohiba and Koloa Duck egg to a friend in the judicial branch of the government of Japan.

That gentleman in the judicial branch of government of Japan was so spurred to action by that Cohiba and Koloa Duck egg, that he in turn sent a Macanudo and Mandarin Duck egg to a friend employed in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, who was so touched that he sent a Perdomo and Imperial Asian Pear to a Deputy Prime Minister in Russia. Well, that minister in Moscow was so titillated that he sent a Don Rafael and Faberge Egg to a friend in the Republic of Cuba, who turned around twice for luck, threw some salt over this shoulder, and sent by return mail a humongous Diplomaticos Nortenos, which was passed along to an agent of the Russian Secret Service who had just received news that an American intelligence agency had uncovered information to thwart a terrorist attack in St. Petersburg.

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So of course, at first opportunity, that secret service agent passed a Romeo Y Julieta along to an agent of the CIA with spasibos. That CIA agent then forwarded an Arturo Fuente to the American mole who provided that classified information to Russia, and that American mole is now smoking that Arturo Fuente while communing with, you guessed it, Ernest Hemingway.

And that, my friend, is where the convoluted history of the Montecristo Torpedo ends, though a brand new story, and perhaps an easier story to follow, is coming our way one day soon …

Learn more about McAvoy Layne at http://www.ghostoftwain.com.